find the right words, I had thought to myself. With the right words everything could change-South Africa, the lives of
ghetto kids just a few miles away, my own tenuous place in the world.
I was still in that trancelike state when I mounted the stage. For I don’t know how long, I just stood there, the sun in
my eyes, the crowd of a few hundred restless after lunch. A couple of students were throwing a Frisbee on the lawn;
others were standing off to the side, ready to break off to the library at any moment. Without waiting for a cue, I
stepped up to the microphone.
“There’s a struggle going on,” I said. My voice barely carried beyond the first few rows. A few people looked up, and
I waited for the crowd to quiet.
“I say, there’s a struggle going on!”
The Frisbee players stopped.
“It’s happening an ocean away. But it’s a struggle that touches each and every one of us. Whether we know it or not.
Whether we want it or not. A struggle that demands we choose sides. Not between black and white. Not between rich
and poor. No-it’s a harder choice than that. It’s a choice between dignity and servitude. Between fairness and injustice.
Between commitment and indifference. A choice between right and wrong...”
I stopped. The crowd was quiet now, watching me. Somebody started to clap. “Go on with it, Barack,” somebody else
shouted. “Tell it like it is.” Then the others started in, clapping, cheering, and I knew that I had them, that the
connection had been made. I took hold of the mike, ready to plunge on, when I felt someone’s hands grabbing me from
behind. It was just as we’d planned it, Andy and Jonathan looking grim-faced behind their dark glasses. They started
yanking me off the stage, and I was supposed to act like I was trying to break free, except a part of me wasn’t acting, I
really wanted to stay up there, to hear my voice bouncing off the crowd and returning back to me in applause. I had so
much left to say.
But my part was over. I stood on the side as Marcus stepped up to the mike in his white T-shirt and denims, lean and
dark and straight-backed and righteous. He explained to the audience what they had just witnessed, why the
administration’s waffling on the issue of South Africa was unacceptable. Then Regina got up and testified, about the
pride her family had felt in seeing her at college and the shame she now felt knowing that she was a part of an
institution that paid for its privilege with the profits of oppression. I should have been proud of the two of them; they
were eloquent, you could tell the crowd was moved. But I wasn’t really listening anymore. I was on the outside again,
watching, judging, skeptical. Through my eyes, we suddenly appeared like the sleek and well-fed amateurs we were,
with our black chiffon armbands and hand-painted signs and earnest young faces. The Frisbee players had returned to
their game. When the trustees began to arrive for their meeting, a few of them paused behind the glass walls of the
administration building to watch us, and I noticed the old white men chuckling to themselves, one old geezer even
waving in our direction. The whole thing was a farce, I thought to myself-the rally, the banners, everything. A pleasant
afternoon diversion, a school play without the parents. And me and my one-minute oration-the biggest farce of all.
At the party that night, Regina came up to me and offered her congratulations. I asked what for.
“For that wonderful speech you gave.”
I popped open a beer. “It was short, anyway.”
barré
(Barré)
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